A Kid Called Irving Mosquito Just Got Drafted Into The AFL & BT’s Gonna Shit

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The AFL is a unique league in world sport in no small part due to its bevy of magnificently named players, all of whom push the boundaries on formal titling on a year-to-year basis.

Outside of the standard race to find the most creative way to spell the name Jarod/Jarrad/Jarryd – a mighty feat chronicled magnificently in The Monthly‘s annual compendium of footy names, which you should definitely wrap your eyes around ASAP – the league is littered with cases of incredible, throat-cleansing monikers. And few clubs are a more ardent supporter of that than the Essendon Football Club.

Already a long-time backer of wondrous names like Che Cockatoo-Collins, Ariel Steinberg, and more recently the Brian Taylor-stiffy inducing Orazio Fantasia, the Bombers added a new entry to the list thanks to the drafting of small forward Irving Mosquitoearlier today.

The Dons secured the young forward with the 38th overall pick in the 2018 AFL Draft. Hawthorn had initially had priority on Mosquito, as a member of their Next Generation Academy squad, but ultimately decided not to match the bid placed by Essendon recruiters.

The speedy 175cm jet originally hails from Halls Creek, about 700km inland of Broome in the Kimberley region of WA. However he left for Victoria at age 11 with a guardian family, settling in Gippsland where he pursued a career in footy that, now, has finally borne fruit.